A Gathering of Marauders
by MoonyJude7
Summary: One-shot. Remus finally stands up to Sirius and James in their desperate pleas for him to help with their pranks.


A Gathering of Marauders

**Disclaimer:** Anything you recognize comes from J.K Rowling.

Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew hurried down to the Quidditch field. Their two best friends, James Potter and Sirius Black, had already gone down after their detentions with Professor McGonagall.

"I can't wait to hear what they did this time," Peter puffed, hurrying to catch up with Remus.

"I can," Remus muttered, knowing that it couldn't be good. It never was when you were dealing with those two.

The four fifth-year boys had been best friends as long as they could remember. James and Sirius had known each other before they came to Hogwarts, the wizarding school they went to, and had then quickly made friends with Peter. It hadn't taken long to convince Remus to become their friend as well, despite his "furry little problem", as James liked to call it.

Even though the full moon was approaching, Remus was still faster than Peter, and reached the edge of the Quidditch field before him. As he waited for Peter to catch up, he scanned the field. James and Sirius were nowhere in sight, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Most likely, they were using James' Invisibility Cloak. Remus turned around to look at Peter, who was still a good distance away. He hoped that James and Sirius weren't causing trouble. As a prefect, Remus was supposed to discipline them. Somehow, this hardly ever seemed to happen.

"Moony!" Remus heard a voice whisper. He jumped and whirled around, but didn't see anything. He sighed. "James… " he began, knowing that voice all too well.

"It's _Prongs_!" James hissed. "You have to call me by my nickname!"

Remus sighed again. James always wanted anything special to sound special, and therefore decided to give them all nicknames a couple weeks ago. He supposed this wasn't as bad as first year when James insisted that they be called the Marauders, and that you had to talk to all of them or none of them. At least this time James wasn't insisting on the whole school; only they were supposed to use the nicknames. Remus was Moony, Peter was Wormtail, Sirius was Padfoot, and James was Prongs.

"Where's Wormtail?" another voice murmured. Remus immediately knew this was Sirius. He was the kind of person where even his voice turned heads. Everyone knew that Sirius had something they didn't; they just didn't know what, and this made him incredibly popular. Sometimes Remus was jealous, but most of the time he was just happy to be accepted.

"Here he comes," Remus replied, as Peter skidded to a stop next to Remus, breathing heavily.

"Where're Padfoot and Prongs?" gasped Peter. Unlike Remus, Peter had accepted the nicknames with joy, as he did with anything James came up with. Sirius had merely gone along with it, since he didn't care particularly and knew it would please James. Remus was the stubborn one.

"BOO!" both James and Sirius exclaimed, pulling the Cloak off of them and jumping out at Peter. Peter let out a very girly scream, and jumped about a foot into the air. James and Sirius fell on the ground and started rolling around, they were laughing so hard. Even Remus, who usually ignored this sort of behavior, chuckled a bit.

"Merlin!" Peter gasped. "That wasn't funny!" As James and Sirius pulled themselves up from the ground, still laughing quietly, Sirius retorted, "It most certainly was, my friend, and you know it. If we had done it to anyone else you'd be laughing with us."

Peter smiled a little, knowing it was the truth. Besides, James and Sirius had certainly pulled much worse pranks, so he supposed he'd gotten off easy.

"Is there any particular reason why you called us down here at one o'clock in the morning, other than scaring Peter out of his wits?" Remus asked testily. He was becoming very tired, and knew he should be in bed with the full moon not two nights away or he wouldn't be able to stay awake tomorrow, but he couldn't help it. There was something about his friends… they were addicting.

"Yes, there is, Moony," James said grandly. "We had an idea."

"Is this your first one?" Remus tried to shut his mouth, but he simply couldn't. The sly remarks simply slipped out of their own accord; there was no stopping them. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why James had been so adamant that they were to be friends, back in first-year. Remus remembered it well…

Remus was sitting at one of the back tables in the library, trying to focus on his History of Magic essay, when James sat down next to him. Remus groaned. James had been trying to convince Remus to become a Marauder since the beginning of the year, but Remus just didn't think he could do it. After all, Remus was a werewolf. How could a werewolf possibly have friends? Especially ones like these. James said that Marauders had to do everything together, and, consequently, they did. Remus knew it would be nearly impossible to hide his secret from them, but of course James didn't understand.

"James –" Remus began, but James quickly cut him off.

"Look, Remus," James started harshly, "I don't know why you don't want to be friends with us, but I do know that it's probably not a good reason. You realize that once you're a Marauder, you're a Marauder for life. We won't betray you. I don't care if you secretly sleep with a teddy bear. It doesn't matter to us. Are you scared we'll get you in trouble? You don't have to pull pranks with us if you don't want to; we don't mind. You just _have_ to be a Marauder. We need you Remus, you know we do. You're smart and witty, but you're responsible too. You know that none of us have any responsibility whatsoever. You could keep us in line. Remus… just try it. You don't have to stay a Marauder, I suppose, if you don't want to. But think about it! You'll always have friends, wherever you go. We'll always look after each other; like brothers, or something. Please, Remus?"

Remus stared at James, who looked more nervous than he'd ever seen him. James Potter wasn't nervous. James Potter was _never_ nervous. It was then that Remus realized James cared about him. He truly cared. Suddenly, Remus didn't care he turned into a monster once a month. All that mattered was that James wanted to be friends. Really, who in their right mind would pass up friends?

"Moony! Hey, Moony! Come back down to Earth, my furry friend," James joked, grinning at Remus. Remus blinked, remembering where they were and focusing once more on James.

"Well?" Peter asked expectantly. "Why'd you guys ask us to come down here?"

Sirius smirked. "Excellent question," he praised. "We thought up a prank, and a rather brilliant one, if I do say so myself."

"What is it?" Remus asked tiredly. "You know, if it's something really bad, I just don't feel right letting you guys go again…"

"No, Moony, you'll love it! That's why it's so brilliant!" James declared. "You know how Frank Longbottom – that annoying seventh-year – always commentates the matches? And how he's in love with that girl Alice from Ravenclaw, and whenever he commentates one of Ravenclaw's matches he only talks about her? Well, if we can charm the microphone so that he can't say her name, wouldn't that be bloody brilliant?"

"Why would that be brilliant?" Remus asked, confused.

"So we don't have to listen to 'Oh look, Alice did this, Alice did that,' the whole match," Sirius said, rolling his eyes. "It's the most annoying thing in the world!"

"Just because it's annoying doesn't mean it's bad," Remus pointed out. "Besides, if it was so horrible, wouldn't McGonagall put a stop to it?"

"She can't!" James exclaimed. "Longbottom's the only one who will do it! Anyone else who's tried keeps swearing and giving biased opinions. Personally, I liked it better that way. Longbottom's boring."

"And how are you even going to go through with this?" Remus asked. "I don't remember learning about any charm that can do that."

Sirius and James exchanged glances. Peter spoke up, "You don't know of a single spell, Moony? But I thought you knew _everything_!"

"I don't know everything," replied Remus irritably, as James and Sirius sniggered. "And I probably wouldn't tell you even if I did."

"Aw, Moony!" Sirius complained. "You can't be serious!"

"You're right," Remus responded with a straight face. "You are."

All four boys chuckled. That joke never got old.

"But Moony," James began, "Honestly. Do you know of a spell that can do that?"

Remus pursed his lips and didn't answer.

"He does know!" Sirius exclaimed. "Come on, Moony, you have to tell us. You can't keep secrets from you fellow Marauders!" Remus looked away, so Sirius, James, and Peter began begging on hands and knees for Remus to tell them the spell. Remus sighed. His friends could be quite tiring at times. Remus wished they didn't cause so much trouble. It didn't exactly help his conscience, especially since he never stopped them.

"I'm going to bed," he announced, starting to head back up to the castle, ignoring his friends protests. Suddenly, he realized that was the first time he had ever ignored their requests. Smiling a bit to himself, he continued, growing more tired with every step.


End file.
